Pharmaceutical chewing gum is well known for different purposes. Such medical chewing gum may be used for the delivery of an active pharmaceutical ingredient to consumers in need thereof.
Nicotine chewing gum is applied for the purpose of providing a release of nicotine into the saliva in a user's mouth when the user is chewing the nicotine chewing gum. The released nicotine may then be absorbed by the oral mucosa and finally enter the blood stream.
WO 02/102357 A2 discloses a nicotine chewing gum for nicotine delivery by rapid trans-mucosal uptake.
US 2013/0071515 discloses a non-tack gum base comprising polyvinyl acetate and vinyl laurate-vinyl acetate copolymer.
US 2013/0309352 discloses polyvinyl acetate and vinyl laurate-vinyl acetate copolymer as ingredients in a gum base that is simple to process.
One challenge of medical chewing gum in general is that the chewing gum is a complex delivery vehicle. Chewing gum or gum base ingredients may affect multiple properties of the chewing gum. One such example may be that the application of a particular gum base or chewing gum ingredient softens the chewing gum, thereby leading to an increased release due to the eased chewing of the chewing gum. This may be attractive or non-attractive, but a challenge is that the release may be different from the release induced by another ingredient and most of all, the chewing gum texture may simultaneously be affected to a degree that the chewing gum does not have the desired typical textural chewing gum properties. This may e.g. be counteracted by the incorporation of another chewing gum ingredient making the chewing gum harder and/or increasing the elasticity, but this may then affect the desired release and so forth. When referring to typical textural chewing gum properties, it is here noted that the desired rheology of chewing gum is very different from the rheology of typical chewy confectionery such as toffee, chocolate, wine gum, etc. . . . This is in particular the case in relation to the elastomeric properties required to obtain a confectionery product satisfying the consumer's expectations in relation to a chewing gum.
A particular challenge in relation to nicotine chewing gum is that the nicotine released may cause an unpleasant sensory sensation for the user of the chewing gum which is generally referred to as burning. On the other hand there is a desire to maximize the nicotine release from the chewing gum, as it is this nicotine which provides the user of the chewing gum the desired counteraction of craving.
In other words, the nicotine should be released, but at the same time the nicotine released causes the burning.
It is an object of the present invention to provide medical chewing gum with improved overall properties, such as nicotine chewing gum.